Volt Rush by Henry Sanderson review – creating a clean energy world is possible
The journalist’s thorough investigation finds that corporations are unearthing alternatives to fossil fuels. Who will benefit?Henry Sanderson has written a remarkably hopeful and useful book. My guess...
View ArticleElusive by Frank Close review – the brilliance of physicist Peter Higgs
An illuminating guide to the man and the science behind the Higgs boson – and how its discovery ‘ruined’ his lifeExactly 10 years ago, Peter Higgs learned that the subatomic particle named after him...
View ArticleSwamp Songs by Tom Blass review – a wetlands odyssey
A bracingly original tour of the world’s boggy places reveals as much about human behaviour as it does about geographyYou never know what horrors may be lurking at the bottom of a swamp. Bogs,...
View Article‘You can’t say that!’: how to argue, better
A good debate isn’t about one person declaring victory, it’s about both people making a discovery, says psychologist Adam Grant• What happened when we paired up celebrities across the political...
View ArticleThe big idea: do nations really need borders?
In an era of global heating, fixed boundaries may soon be unsustainable. What are the alternatives? Last November, Simon Kofe, the foreign minister of Tuvalu– a nation formed out of a series of...
View ArticleThe big idea: are we living in a simulation?
Could the universe be an elaborate game constructed by bored aliens?Elon Musk thinks you don’t exist. But it’s nothing personal: he thinks he doesn’t exist either. At least, not in the normal sense of...
View ArticleRivers brought me heart-shattering loss - then gave me a home
Author Amy Jane Beer’s fascination with these elemental environments was halted by tragedy, but with time she has returned to find a deep sense of connectionSomething happens to our brains when we...
View ArticleThe Edge of the Plain by James Crawford review – beyond borders
A richly essayistic account of how borders make and break our world, from Hadrian’s Wall to China’s Great FirewallWhat a border means depends on who you are. The reopening of international borders...
View ArticleNomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval by Gaia Vince review – a...
In an optimistic new work, the author of Adventures in the Anthropocene argues that planned mass migration is essential for humanity to inhabit a world 4C warmerGaia Vince’s new book should be read not...
View ArticleIn brief: Carrie Soto Is Back; High; All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days –...
A retired tennis champion defends her title and finds herself; Erika Fatland has an insightful Himalayan adventure; and a gripping true story of a woman in the anti-Nazi resistanceTaylor Jenkins...
View ArticleJoined Up Thinking by Hannah Critchlow review – the power of collective...
A lively examination of communal endeavour and the technological advances that could spur greater cooperationIntelligence – at least according to IQ test scores – is declining across the globe, which...
View ArticleNomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval review – humanity on the move
Environmental journalist Gaia Vince presents methods by which we could stave off self-inflicted extinction and come to terms with climate displacementIt is unusual for a book that foresees billions of...
View ArticlePlanta Sapiens by Paco Calvo review – extraterrestrials in the garden
A mind-expanding exploration of botanical intelligence argues that plants can remember, learn and even plan aheadIn Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 movie Arrival the US army asks an expert in linguistics to...
View ArticlePlanta Sapiens by Paco Calvo review – talk to your plants and you might just...
For all its fascinating facts, this hymn to our green friends tells us more about the author than the wonders and intelligence of the natural worldPlant blindness. That’s what scientists call the way...
View ArticleChildren’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels
Bad manners in the jungle; a magical inner-city tree; galactic danger; a conservationist call to arms; plus the best new YA novelsWrong! by Ciara Flood, illustrated by Lucia Gaggiotti, Farshore,...
View ArticleCosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton: ‘Our universe is one tiny grain of dust...
As her new book on the origins of the universe is published, the Albanian-American scientist explains how her work on multiverse theory influenced Stephen Hawking, and how totalitarian rule shaped her...
View ArticleAnd Finally: Matters of Life and Death review – humility lessons from Henry...
The ever candid neurosurgeon reflects on his own mortality, as well as the failings of his profession, in this enthralling third volume of memoirs“I am not a scientist,” says Henry Marsh on the first...
View ArticleHigh: A Journey across the Himalayas by Erika Fatland
An anthropologist establishes a unique rapport with the people she encounters on this unromantic trek through the mountainsA magnet for explorers, climbers and seekers of enlightenment, the Himalayas...
View ArticleAre you a busybody, a hunter or a dancer? A new book about curiosity reveals all
Twin academics Perry Zurn and Dani S Bassett fought to forge idiosyncratic paths through academia – then put that knowledge to use in a seven-year study of how we learnIn the early 17th century, there...
View ArticleThe big idea: why relationships are the key to existence
From subatomic particles to human beings, interaction is what shapes realityQuantum theory is perhaps the most successful scientific idea ever. So far, it has never been proved wrong. It is...
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